Comet Asylum
by Lady Storm
Summary: Sasuke has it so much worse. That's why he has every right to do this. [Collection of drabbles, mostly centers around Sasuke & Naruto, not all.]
1. Music In His Ears, Itches In His Fingers

**Title: **Comet Asylum (Drabble Collective)  
**Author:** Lady Storm, Eshva, Raph_  
_**Author's Note:** I write so many drabbles that I decided to just smoosh them into one story. Updated whenever inspiration strikes. Please review to let me know if I'm wasting my time posting these or not.

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**Music In His Ears (Itches In His Fingers)**

He learned how to play the piano once. Of course, it's been years since then, but once in a while he still finds himself making his fingers dance clumsily across a flat surface. He tries in vain to retrieve that smooth flowing of digits he had once been able to at least feebly imitate, but now his fingers are a jumbled mess, his left hand completely useless and out of sync. He had never quite been able to control both hands at once, and he certainly cannot do so now. He strives to call back memories of tunes he used to know, cheap symphonies and cheaper keyboards, but his right hand is struggling and his left had long given up. If one would look, he would appear to be but a young man tapping angrily on wood, merely alternating which fingers he hits with. And maybe he is. But he listens to the music in his head, the music he wishes he could bring to life, the music he wishes others could hear.

But it's alright. He does not need to know piano to survive, he tells himself. What is music, but an entertainment, a leisure, a false breath of happiness? Yet he still burns and corrodes inside with rusted envy as he watches the player summon flawless notes and chords without effort, but certainly with emotion, as the music kisses his ears and bleeds through the room. He wishes it were _his_ hands, _his_ fingers, his being, gracing the air with that beautifully bleeding sound.

When it is time to leave and the notes shudder just once he silently weeps. There is only the mocking echo ringing in his head now, and he scrambles to hold on to the bars and measures before he can forget, but only scrambled fragments remain.

However the burns only last as long as the music lingering in his head, and then he sees midnight black and a porcelain face and the broken music is replaced by another - the melody of their vows and beating hearts. He weeps at this as well, for he knows, he knows this time the other can hear it too.


	2. Clocks

**Clocks **

The ticking of the clock rang in his ears. 

Silence. When there was no other sound to muffle it, you never realized how _loud_ it was. The whistling of the trees outside, the pipes creaking and clanking, the air conditioning busily working away. The clock, quietly watching over them.

It was deafening. His ears hurt.

He tapped his pen, loose in his fingers, against the desk angrily. One minute. Two. Three.

He puts it away, making noise only to drown out this pounding silence, resonating in his head.

Backwards now. Three. Two. One.

The teacher up front nods and leaves.

Grabbing his bag, he made to the door, casting a fleeting glance at the only other boy in the room.

The clock reads three in the afternoon, and the boy does not move.

-

-

-

Sometimes at night he sees them. A pair of eyes, pupils dilated, seething, unafraid. There is something else there as well, but he can never tell, because just when he thinks he is starting to understand

-He opens his eyes and they are gone, replaced instead by a clock. It glows importantly to itself in its eerie light, for anyone who would care to look.

It reads three in the morning, and he does not move.

-

-

-

Lying on the pavement, his life dripping from his lips, he wonders when it started. When it had all started.

His chest hurt, adorned with bruises and cuts he would never admit the presence of. None of them were serious anyway.

When had he started to notice?

Someone stirs beside him, groaning loudly.

When had the clocks started to keep time?

A shock of golden hair rises in his vision, in no better state than he. The blond smirks weakly, too weary to throw another punch.

He knows it, and relaxes slightly.

When had the clocks started to watch over them?

"Eh, Princess, think we'll get another detention for this?"

The boy smiles.

He closes his eyes and whispers gently. A whisper that is more a breath of air than a pair of syllables, blowing past his lips.

"Dobe."

Somewhere, a clock tells the time, and they do not move.


	3. Order Of Significance, Least to Greatest

**Order of Significance (Least to Greatest)**

He doesn't mind being dead last, because at least he isn't in the middle. He isn't ordinary, he isn't like the rest, he will not baaa along and follow the herd. He doesn't like grass much anyway. The thing about being last, he knows, is that you were always noticed, remembered. Being in front usually signified importance, value. And perhaps so. But at the back, people had long learned from experience that you were there for a reason. Or because you had no where left to go, and that was a reason in itself. Negative attention, maybe, but attention – an acknowledgement, though he did not always know of what – nonetheless.

He strives to be first one day, the leader of the line. He will get there through hard work and drive, because he does not believe in shortcuts to absolute respect and power. But he has time hidden about somewhere, and he will take it, because there's a pretty interesting view from the back.


	4. Inside, My Heart

**Inside (My Heart)**

The wind blew through the leaves gustily, imitating the sound of rain as the leaves brushed against each other in a mad dance. The sun crept out of its hiding place and apologized to it's creatures below, while the chatter of birds filling the air.

The wind crept through his window and slammed the door shut with a loud bang. Naruto looked up from his homework, irritated.

He grumbled as he went back to his computer, trying to form a proper sentence in his head that could somehow summarize the early life of El Greco.

He came up blank.

Naruto looked outside wistfully. Stuck inside on a sunny Saturday morning! He wanted to go out, yes, but that would mean having to...

Sighing, he wished his apartment wasn't located in such a desolated little corner. Naruto did not even get any sunlight through his windows.

He went back to his report, and put on a CD to lighten the mood. He did not have the patience to find the radio station he listened to on his tuning dial.

The music was not so loud that it blared, but apparently loud enough to wake the boy still sleeping behind him.

"Nnnngh... damn it, Naruto, put that blasted music down!"

Rammstein ignored him, and kept hissing in German through the speakers. Naruto followed suit.

Sasuke grumbled and almost threw his pillow at him, but decided it would do better to block out the noise instead. He snuggled under the covers and clapped the pillow around his ears.

Naruto smiled to himself. Maybe it wasn't so bad to stay indoors after all.


	5. Justified

**Justified **

"_It is easier to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all." _

It is easier to lose something if you never knew what you had lost in the first place. It is easier to miss someone if you had never really known them. It is no trouble to forget that brand new book, that one you had just picked out at random, because it never interested you much anyway. That book, it was simply to fill up those dusty bookshelves. That person, they were only an acquaintance to make time crawl by a little faster.

That is why Sasuke thinks he's got it worse. Surely, surely it is harder for him, he who had it all and lost it all. Now take Naruto, well, he never had anything to begin with – he doesn't know what he's missing, what he's even pining for. This makes Sasuke furious. He never had anything in the first place!

So how could Naruto possibly understand that pain, the pain that came with the sight of his brother, those eyes, that knife, his parents, their blood? How could he – how _dare_ he – think that he understands the loss of a family? This pain, their pain, is too different.

That is what Sasuke tells himself as he lays there – dying, he's sure that's what it is – with needles adorning his limbs and blood gracing his lips. He thinks of life and death and newborn infants - they have it so much better, though it's a shame, such a shame, but at least they never even knew they were even alive. Him, he's lived, at least somewhat. Surely he had been living before that day? Sasuke knows what he's going to be missing out on; life in the broad sense of the term. He knows he will never accomplish his life's mission. He knows that if he dies its goodbye sunshine and goodbye vengeance and goodbye sore, arduous, wonderful aching of muscles after sparring with Naruto -

Well, he tries not to dwell too much on that last one. But that is what he tells himself as he sits on the branch of the tree, looking at the hospital roof, at the destruction Naruto had caused. At the power Naruto has proven he harbors. At Naruto's attempt to keep him here. Sasuke doesn't push away his jealousy, his indigence, but instead feeds it to his fire to keep himself warm. How could Naruto? How dare Naruto? Doesn't he see Sasuke _needs_ this power?

He has it much, much worse. His pain, it's far greater. He knows what has been lost, and it's not an acquaintance, and it's certainly not a book.

Therefore, he has every right to do this.

This is what he tells himself. This is what he wishes he actually believed as he limps away, leaving Naruto beaten, soaked and unconscious back at the valley where they ended everything.


	6. Retrospect

_I am so sorry. _(winces)_ Angst is a lot more easier to write than to read.  
_

WARNINGS:_ dark, angst, what-if. Rated PG?_

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**Retrospect **(A worst case scenario)

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After his death there was a lot of damage to take care of. The bloodied walls, which would usually go unnoticed when these little things tended to happen, certainly couldn't be ignored this time, since there was so little of its original colour showing through. And as much physical damage there was, there was a lot more emotional damage to match for it. Like, per say, the people who had to re-paint the walls, not thinking. The morticians who had to look at the body, not seeing. Or maybe the people who witnessed the assassination, not believing. 

Funny how when a normal citizen dies its murder. When it's an important figure it's an assassination.

Even their language was a popularity contest.

(It had been a popularity contest for him as well, otherwise he might have never have fallen this way, this hard, this soon.)

They hadn't even finished carving his face into the mountain yet, but the rest of the market square was soon restored, as people were in a hurry to forget and ashamed to have forgotten. A little more blood to scrub, perhaps.

(At least he had gotten this far, but he hadn't realized, it had been too late, a day, an hour, a second too late.)

They pushed themselves on.

They would have to choose a new Hokage, of course. The best choice was Nara Shikamaru, who despite being loath – for many different reasons - to take the job, was unanimously the most suitable. If anything, he only did it for his peace of mind.

(Konohamaru was still not ready, too young, too broken. It had only been a few months.)

There was a funeral, of course, there were always funerals. Same garb, same expressions, same straying thoughts, different memorial. And once in a while, different people.

And always the same attempt at silence.

And Sasuke floats and waits for eternity, because he lost it long ago. His mind is no longer his now, and the snake is gleeful.

(He has finally learned that it's useless to look back on the past, so now he is simply glad his senses are no longer his own, for then he would have to remember the feel of his hands tearing once again through Naruto's flesh.)

x

x

x

But he can still remember his face.


End file.
